Somewhere Tomorrow
by EscapeToCity
Summary: Broken pieces, broken lives...please R&R if you can


SOMEWHERE TOMORROW  
  
By: EscapeToCity  
  
Disclaimer: None of these characters belong to me. They are property of The WB/DC Comics/Millar-Gough, etc.  
  
Summary:...broken pieces, broken lives. I wrote this mainly from a character's perspective I rarely use, but should elicit more...  
  
Please read and review if you have the time.  
  
*****  
  
"How is she?"  
  
"The same."  
  
"I'm sorry I haven't been over more often....I just...well...honestly..."  
  
"I understand."  
  
"Do you?"  
  
"Yes."  
  
"He wasn't the person I thought he was."  
  
"None of us are."  
  
"He was dark."  
  
"We all are."  
  
"He scared me. You did what you had to do."  
  
"---"  
  
"I shouldn't say that about your son, should I? I'm sorry."  
  
"It's alright."  
  
"Have you taken care of the...the--"  
  
"The bodies?"  
  
"Yes. It helps to be an organic farmer."  
  
***  
  
Her stomach turned and she knew she should leave. Jonathan Kent didn't need her hanging out looking for answers. She had too many answers now. She would never ask a question again.  
  
"Mr. Kent--"  
  
"Jonathan."  
  
"Yes....Jonathan--"  
  
"We're past formalities now, Lana."  
  
"Yes."  
  
"Would you like me to come by again and see Mrs. Kent?"  
  
"Yes....I would like that....very much."  
  
"Good."  
  
***  
  
I wish she would talk to me. To him. To any of us. For now she just sits there in her corner by the window and sometimes she smiles and I see blue teddy bears and stars there...often she cries and moans and drifts into a place I know too well...a place I know from misty cemeteries and cloned playmates and nightmares that will never abate.  
  
"I'll come by on Thursday."  
  
"That'll be fine, Lana."  
  
***  
  
She's gone now and I return to my nursing duties. She's a good girl, a sincere person...sure, she's a martyr, but we all are now.  
  
I should have played for the Sharks. Should have never come back to my father's land. Should have found a way to give Martha a normal city life with a normal adopted son.  
  
Her father had offered to buy one for us. I was too prideful to take him up on it.  
  
Fool. Bumpkin. Moron.  
  
I would have done anything for her. I still would. Still do.  
  
I'm stroking her hair now and it's strange because she used to grasp my hand while I did that, when we lay in bed sweaty and sated and smiling and she's so beautiful and--  
  
And I'm not sure she can survive this. I'm dead already.  
  
"Martha--"  
  
I stop myself because I know she won't respond. Can't respond.  
  
I would have done anything for him. My son.  
  
Her mouth is closed and her eyes are open and her heart is dead.  
  
***  
  
I go downstairs and pour a cup of scalding coffee and look over the seed list again. Another tough year. More and more, I think of selling out. This was supposed to be our farm, our project, our struggle. Without her voice and laugh and touch...it's worthless.  
  
I talked to Jim down at Society Bank about selling it to this new company...Wayne Enterprises....they want to build a regional shopping mall out this way. The PR lady...Gordon...she was out here explaining it all to me...she had lush red hair, like Martha...  
  
My father is rolling in his grave.  
  
Lionel no longer seems interested in this land or anything else in Smallville. He's vanished from both the corporate and social scenes. Guess losing a son can do that to you.  
  
Lex...I think about him sometimes...maybe I was too hard on him but the boy was too arrogant. He needed some modesty, some subtlety. The sad part is I always saw a good man there, hidden. I oft wonder what he would have become had he survived.  
  
Losing sons...happens everyday, all around the world. Some get shot, some jump off bridges. Some steal or kill or forget about you...  
  
My son is dead.  
  
My Clark is gone.  
  
The headache hits me fast and I settle down into the old wooden chair. My grandfather built this chair. I don't want to think about it but it won't stop.  
  
***  
  
"Get away from me, Pete!"  
  
"Clark, man...you gotta come home...now!"  
  
"Never. Fuck home, fuck you."  
  
"Please, man. I'm your friend. Please come with me."  
  
Another voice...  
  
"Clark, I love you. Please come with us. Please."  
  
"Never. Go to hell."  
  
And another.  
  
"Please son, listen to her. Listen to us."  
  
"Clark...this isn't you. It isn't. We can help you."  
  
His eyes. I couldn't find my son in those eyes.  
  
"Come back for your adopted alien now that your real baby is dead, Mom? What a joke!"  
  
The next thing I knew he was squeezing the life out of Pete Ross.  
  
"Clark....NOOOO!!!"  
  
Another second and Lana was raised off the floor as well.  
  
"Clark....GOD! NO!"  
  
Martha just crumpled at the sight of this. I ran to her. Carefully I began to pull the shotgun out...  
  
His attention was focused on bloodletting...  
  
"After I finish this tease, I'm coming after you, Jonathan. You're nothing but white trash anyway. You aren't my father. Jor-El is my father and even that bastard's dead."  
  
"Clark, son....you don't know what you are saying....please take the ring off."  
  
"Never. No one can control me. I'm a God now. A King."  
  
I did it unconsciously. Maybe. He couldn't see through lead.  
  
"Mr....K-K-Kent...ple--please help me..."  
  
Lana was nearly gone...her neck was bulging and she didn't have much time left. I saw blood seeping from Pete's head...  
  
"You're next, Pa."  
  
I can't. I have to. Dear God. God....please....why?  
  
"You want it quick or slow?"  
  
Lana was crying. Her eyes....alive and apologetic....I had to.  
  
"Wanna watch the wife get it first?"  
  
I didn't even know I was doing it. I didn't want to do it. I had to.  
  
"Hey Mom...ever realize your cooking sucks?"  
  
Martha looked to me and knew my decision...she wanted to stop me, wanted me to save Lana, wanted me to do anything...  
  
"Hey Martha...wanna fly?"  
  
Blood.  
  
Forgive me, Martha.  
  
"I love you, Clark."  
  
Honor thy mother.  
  
The impact. The explosion. The glowing buckshot payload hit him full on in the chest.  
  
You can never forgive me, Martha.  
  
He screamed and screamed and screamed. Martha's eyes rolled back in her head. Lana dropped from his hands and tried to catch her breath.  
  
I ran to him.  
  
"I'm so sorry, son...I loved you. Please know that."  
  
He just glared at me. Hateful, accusatory, dagger-like eyes.  
  
His red blood pouring out, mixing on the tile with Pete's.  
  
I gently removed the ring from my son's hand.  
  
His body slumped further...I took his hand in mine...my face flooded with salt and regret...  
  
"Daddy...I can't see anything..."  
  
"It's alright, Clark...it's alright."  
  
"Mom....Mom..."  
  
I looked over to Martha. She looked completely lost. Lana was hugging her, crying, trying to get her to talk..."Are you OK, Lana....?"  
  
She nodded through the tears...  
  
I reached for my son's face...stroking it ever so softly...  
  
"I'm here, Clark...I'm here..."  
  
"Dad....it's cold, Dad....It's nice...I haven't felt cold much...ever...."  
  
"I know, son...I know...just relax..."  
  
"...you....had...to....sorry..."  
  
"Don't talk, son..."  
  
I hugged his bloody body to mine. I started crying then and haven't stopped since.  
  
"I...love...."  
  
"---"  
  
***  
  
I'm not the only parent who buried a son. Won't be the last. Somewhere tomorrow I have to find a headstone for Clark. It will read that he lived a 'short time of unending joy'. I know better than that. He wasn't even human. Hard as I tried to make him feel wanted and safe, he never did. Perhaps that's why the red stone held such appeal.  
  
He was a special being from another place that I will never know about...not after the ship was destroyed. He was my little buddy, my best friend and my baseball shortstop. He was my co-consiprator on Christmas morning and my fellow field hand.  
  
He was the best thing I ever didn't make. He was the outlet for all my hopes, and my father's hopes, and certainly Martha's hopes.  
  
He came into this world in violence and left likewise.  
  
I'm upstairs now and she's smiling at me. That vague, childlike smile I have seen in pictures from her at age seven.  
  
I hold her hand and whisper words of love. I don't know if she hears me. The doctor says she may stay in her own world permanently.  
  
The Ross' come by and we try to say the right things. They, of course, believe that Pete and Clark died on the road, laughing and young and innocent. Gas line explosion. Some bullshit we made up. Burned beyond recognition. The Ross' are beautifully naive. Good people. I know that from years ago when I allowed Lionel to use me as their real estate agent.  
  
They will never know about the dark club in the dark city on that dark September day.  
  
Lana and I are the living ghosts. We watch for suspicious looks from people and we record the false truth as fact. We sit on my porch and cry together because no one else can. No one else can ever know that tomorrow won't solve anything, won't fix the problem, won't refresh our souls.  
  
Sometimes she tries to make me feel better. She's young, can't help it. I try to explain that my life is over.  
  
Perhaps my father was right. I was never meant to be a father. I raised a killer. A thief. A rapist.  
  
The sins of the father and such.  
  
I have to place that call to Barbara Gordon. I've tilled my last field. I need to talk to Henry about Lana going far away to college. I have to love Martha. I have to stop thinking about finding another use for that shotgun.  
  
Somewhere, I hope Clark is alright. Somewhere, I know Pete is smiling. Somewhere, I hope there's redemption for us. For me.  
  
END of 'Somewhere Tomorrow'  
  
NOTE: The idea of a kryptonite bullet is not mine...this plot device has been used several times in post-crisis Superman comics. 


End file.
